Askia of Songhai

Askia Mohammad "The Great" I (1443-1538) was emperor of the Songhai Empire from 1493 to 1538. Askia was a former general who overthrew the king Sunni Baru in 1493 when he refused to convert to Islam; Askia became a Muslim ruler who established an organized tax system and encouraged education.

Biography
Mohammad Ture was a military commander of the Songhai Empire, who commanded some of Emperor Sunni Ali Ber's forces. In 1493, when King Sunni Baru refused to convert to Islam, Askia defeated him and took control of the Songhai Empire and ascended the throne as Askia I. Askia subsequently orchestrated a program of expansion and consolidation which extended the empire from Taghaza in the North to the borders of Yatenga in the South; and from Air in the Northeast to Futa Djallon in Guinea. Instead of organizing the empire along Islamic lines, he tempered and improved on the traditional model by instituting a system of bureaucratic government unparalleled in Western Africa. In addition, Askia established standardized trade measures and regulations, and initiated the policing of trade routes. He also established an organized tax system.

Askia encouraged learning and literacy, ensuring that Mali's universities produced the most distinguished scholars, many of whom published significant books and manuscripts and one of which was his nephew and friend Mahmud Kati. To secure the legitimacy of his usurpation of the Sonni dynasty, Askia Muhammad allied himself with the scholars of Timbuktu, ushering in a golden age in the city for scientific and Muslim scholarship.

When he died at the age of 95, he was buried in the Tomb of Askia in Gao, Mali.